'Songs From the Films of David Lynch' (2009) Some Reviews

(see also "Why Dogs Howl At The Moon", "Audio Addiction" and "Full Moon Over Wowtown" reviews pages)

"Truax is paying homage to a kindred spirit with this album. It's the best kind of tribute – affectionate and respectful, but with its own quirks and imaginative leaps and its own distinct identity." -Andrew Eaton, The Scotsman/California Chronical
Read the full review at: http://thescotsman.com

"A genius covers album. For Lynch fans, for Truax fans, Tom Waits lovers and Nick Cave stalkers (and just general surrealists) alike, this album will make your collection." 8/10 -The Beat Surrender

"The inventor/troubadour lovingly applies his Heath Robinson contraptions and some 'real' instruments to the oeuvre of another dream-lounge habitue. These are cool arrangements - and it's fitting that his croon bears similarities to that of sometime Lynch collaborator Barry Adamson. The bashed glockenspiel reading of 'In Heaven' is better than the Pixies' version." -Plan B Magazine

"Truax here performs an album's worth of songs previously used in Lynch movies to great and disturbing effect." -Uncut

"Surreal, really." - Artrocker magazine

Thomas Truax - Songs From the Films of David Lynch
Rating 4/5
Label Psycho Teddy/SL
"‘Lynchian’ has for too long been bandied around as a synonym for ‘surreal’, when it really fits only the truly unsettling and perplexingly brilliant. Luckily, anti-folkster Thomas Truax is both these things, and appropriately these covers wouldn’t sound out of place soundtracking a mental breakdown. Some stick closely to the originals (a haunting rendition of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game), others adjust the details but keep the arch-mood intact (Beck’s Black Tambourine drops some of the strut but keeps the voodoo vibe), while others still mutate into the kind of terrifying sounds you pray won’t creep onto your iPod shuffle as you drift off to sleep - his rendition of In Heaven is more frightening than a screaming Black Francis and a monstrous, miniature radiator lady combined. Testament to both the quality of Lynch’s soundtracks and Truax’s talents, this might induce occasional dreams of backwards-speaking dwarves, but a little insanity never hurt anyone." -Chris Buckle, The Skinny

 

Thomas Truax: Songs From The Films Of David Lynch Rating: 8/10
Label: SL RecordsThomas Truax has recorded a covers album made up of songs featured in David Lynch's films and, somewhat paradoxically, made them somehow more Lynchian. Whilst the director has been known to juxtapose the wholesome and the macabre - think of the creepiness he attaches to the song 'Blue Velvet' with his film of the same name - Truax has managed to infuse the songs with a similar tension just in his arrangement and performance, his slightly off key baritone and clanking home made drum machines standing in for Dennis Hopper being lewd with an oxygen mask.

However, beyond merely being a stylistic exercise, it's a celebration and renewal of some great songs. Stripping back Chris Isaak's 'Wicked Game' makes the song's enticing darkness more apparent. Speeding up 'Falling', the theme from Twin Peaks, completely alters the mood and brings a joyousness to it, as well as an off kilter humour, in tune with the feel of much of the television show.
A version of 'Black Tambourine' doesn’t have the impact of much of the rest of the material - Truax is hardly a dissimilar artist to Beck, so he doesn’t have such a fresh take on a song that wasn’t all that great to begin with – but that’s a minor negative.

Truax’s records have always had a hard time living up to the kitchen sink spectacle of his live shows, and he’s circumvented this by changing tack in moving the emphasis from his home made instruments whilst retaining his character on this somewhat sinister but still heart warming record.

- Christopher Alcxxk, Drowned In Sound

"This is a novel idea for an album which, surprisingly, works well most of the time. Truax fans will love it, and I suspect Lynch may well be tempted to send a few songs Truax’s way in some future movie project." 3.9/5 -Shakenstir.co.uk

**** (4 stars)
A marriage made in blue velvet wedding suit heaven, you might think, and for the most part, you'd be right. Best known for his excellent homemade Heath Robinson-style instruments, here Truax delivers mostly straight versions of Lynch touchstones, creeping blues-man takes with sparsely creepy backing.
Truax inhabits these standards, a fittingly Lynch-ian nod to the weirdness hiding in the seemingly normal. The exceptions are I'm Deranged, Bowie's skittering melodrama turned to ghostly folk, and the Twin Peaks theme, turned oddly Joyous. Great stuff." -Buzz Magazine (Cardiff)

THOMAS TRUAX Songs From The Films Of David Lynch (SL Records)
THOMAS Truax is a New Yorker with a genuine claim to outsider artist status, and his continuing presence on Edinburgh-based SL Records is a significant coup for the label. His reputation is due in part to his florid eccentricities, though his use of self-made instruments with names like the Hornicator helps, too. For this second outing on SL, Truax is inspired by a film-maker with an appropriately unsettling world view: David Lynch. Lynch and Truax share a love of shoes and spooky 1950s rockabilly. There's no evidence of the first here but there is plenty of the second. There are bats, too, recorded by Truax on some nocturnal field trip and used as the rhythm track on In Heaven. A handful of songs will be familiar enough, among them Chris Isaak's Wicked Game (from Wild At Heart) and Falling (the theme tune from Twin Peaks). But recognisability isn't really the point: better to just let it all wash over you ... then sit down and watch Eraserhead.
-Barry Didcock, Sunday Herald

"The first half of the album gives a refreshingly deconstructed, though fairly conventional treatment to these soundtrack classics. Truax’s love of vintage rock n’ roll shines through with his use of rockabilly style distorted steel guitar and husky Johnny Cash-esque vocals. If you listen carefully you can also pick out a whole range of wacky percussion instruments - including a jaws harp, music box, xylophone, sampled bats (yes, really), wobbleboard, and of course the famous Mother Superior.
It’s not until track 6, Audrey’s Dance (an instrumental from Twin Peaks), that the true freakish nature of the beast is revealed, however. Eerily hypnotic chromatic scales accompanied by an assortment of jangly, tinkling, unidentified groaning noises, lure the listener firmly into a dreamlike Lynchian world. This gloriously unhinged state of affairs continues through the next few tracks - climaxing with the deeply disturbing In Heaven (The Lady in the Radiator Song) from Eraserhead - before returning to some semblance of sanity with a more straightforward, and slightly less perturbing version of In Dreams (from Blue Velvet).
Hearing all these songs together like this makes me wonder why noone’s thought to record a Lynch soundtrack covers album before now - but let’s just be grateful that Thomas Truax got there first. An impressive collection, with some genuinely inspired interpretations, it’s sure to go down well with Lynch-lovers, Freakzone listeners and anyone with a penchant for the strange and surreal." (4/5)
-Rowan Stanfield, Reviewedonline.co.uk

Thomas Truax – Songs from
the films of David Lynch (Psycho
Teddy)
The London-based New Yorker is best
known for the strange instruments he
invents with names like The Hornicator
and Mother Superior. This labour of love
sees him play songs associated with
Lynch movies in fairly faithful yet fuzzy
fashion (Wicked Game, Blue Velvet,
Baby Please Don’t Go). It’s when he
fiddles with the template that Truax gets
interesting – Twin Peaks (Falling)
becomes a rockabilly rumble while
Bowie’s techno-rocker I’m Deranged
(from Lost Highway) is deconstructed as
a sinister country ballad – very Lynchian.
-Lee Trewhela, What's On -Albums of the Week (Guardian)

"It'd sit in your record collection nicely... you'd listen to it enough to warrant spending the cash. In short - Thumbs Up."-Electric Roulette.com

"Weirdly wonderful...His dark, husky baritone and stripped down guitar parts are the perfect treatment for this compilation of memorable Lynch moments, and when combined with his unique homemade instruments, it's a tuneful take on some classic tunes...Also comes in the best packaging we've seen in ages." -Paula Gregory, Chimp magazine